Following Monday night’s 3-2 overtime win over the New York Islanders that locked the Boston Bruins into the third-seed in the East Division and a first-round playoff matchup with the Washington Capitals, the National Hockey League quickly announced when the series would begin.
The NHL announced that the Bruins and Capitals would meet in Game 1 on Saturday night at Capital One Arena at 7:15 p.m. on NBC (insert your jokes about the NBC calling the game and the game actually starting at 7:15 here). Three days later, the NHL announced the schedule for the remainder of the series and it is a schedule that everyone thought it would be.
Thursday morning, the NHL released the playoff schedules and the remainder of the Bruins series with the Caps goes like this,
Game 1 – Saturday at Washington, 7:15 p.m.
Game 2 – Monday at Washington, 7:30 p.m.
Game 3 – Wednesday at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
Game 4 – May 21 at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
*Game 5 – May 23 at Washington, TBA
*Game 6 – May 25 at Boston, TBA
*Game 7 – May 27 at Washington, TBA
*If necessary
So here we go. A schedule of every other day, as expected. Who does that help? We will find out. The good news, there are NO back-to-backs.
What is also nice is there are two 6:30 start times including a Friday night early start time at the TD Garden for Game 4.
This should be one of the more entertaining series in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The two teams have already played eight times this season, so what’s possibly seven more? A lot of physical hockey is my guess. Hope it stays within the rules too.
The teams split the eight games in terms of wins and losses, with each team winning in the others arena twice. Washington won the season final 2-1 Tuesday night. It will be interesting if a limited number of fans in each arena has an effect on the series. We’ll find out beginning Saturday night.